With federal regulations putting the squeeze on families and their options, some Christian ministries offer a hopeful alternative.

WASHINGTON — The disastrous rollout of President Barack Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has challenged the president’s famous promise: “If you like your plan, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

But according to Catholic and other Christian critics, Obamacare appears also to say that if a person likes his morals, he can’t keep those either.

Scott Griswold, a Catholic insurance agent in South Carolina, said health insurance has been part of his insurance business for more than two decades. But the ACA’s mandates have made him decide that his conscience won’t allow him to sell health policies in the future.

“I’m going to continue to take care of the folks I’ve sold policies to in the past, but, morally, I just can’t sell coverage for birth control, abortifacients, morning-after pills and sterilizations,” he said.

New insurance plans under the ACA must include these services as an “essential health benefit,” free of charge to the consumer. These services, mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services, are the core of U.S. Catholics’ legal battles with the federal government.

“I just don’t want any part of it,” Griswold said.

Griswold’s dilemma is emblematic of the moral discernment that many Catholics are facing, especially those trying to buy individual health-coverage policies through state or federal health exchanges.

As people shop on the exchanges, it is an open question as to whether the policies they can apply for are going to cover abortion. People who purchase a plan covering elective abortion must also pay an abortion surcharge.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., highlighted in an Oct. 30 Capitol Hill hearing featuring HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the federal exchange does not show which plans do or do not cover abortion.

“If someone, a constituent of mine or someone in this country has strongly held pro-life views, can you commit to us to make sure that the federal exchanges that offer that are clearly identified, so people can understand if they’re going to buy a policy that has abortion coverage or not?” Shimkus said.

“Sir, I don’t know,” Sebelius admitted in reply. “I know exactly the issue you’re talking about. I will check and make sure that is clearly identifiable.”

Abortion-Free Plans Unavailable

Although every state under the ACA is required to have at least one plan that does not cover abortion, that plan may not necessarily offer coverage everywhere in the state. Moreover, pointed out Susan Muskett, senior legislative counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, consumers in Rhode Island have no abortion-free options: None of the 28 plans on HealthSource RI, the state’s health exchange, exclude elected abortion. The same, Muskett said, goes for Connecticut.

“If you’re living in Connecticut or Rhode Island, you would have no choice but to purchase a plan that covers elective abortion,” Muskett said. “It’s a real moral dilemma, because if you’re a low-income family on a tight budget, those federal subsidies will certainly help — but you know that if you do so, it will be covering elective abortion.”

She said the federal government has until 2017 to make sure that every exchange has a multistate plan (MSP) that excludes elective abortion, but Rhode Island and Connecticut are not among the initial states with a MSP.

Catholic-run small businesses that purchase insurance for their employees through the federal and state health exchanges may also run into a similar dilemma.

“Eventually, we will probably have something on the exchange called ‘employee choice,’ where the employee will be able to choose his own plans within a certain level chosen by the employer,” she said. “So if the exchange determines that they are going to utilize employee choice, then the employee could choose an abortion-covering plan, and the employer would have to pay toward that.”

However, 23 out of 50 states have taken the guesswork out of abortion coverage by banning abortion as a covered benefit in health plans on the exchanges. But for persons living in the rest of the country, figuring out which plans on the exchanges do not offer abortion is a tricky matter.

Muskett said the benefit summary of a particular plan has to say whether a plan covers abortion. “But that’s the only place they have to say that,” she said.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, has been pushing a bill that would inform consumers up front whether the plans they are looking at cover abortion or not. The Abortion Insurance Disclosure Act would require insurance companies to disclose whether they cover abortion on advertising and marketing materials.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, urged Congress to pass the law in a letter, pointing out that the HHS mandate creates enormous obstacles, saying that “not only may pro-life people have a very limited choice of health plans that do not violate their consciences — but the law makes it all but impossible for them to find out which plans they are.”

“This should be a point of agreement between lawmakers who consider themselves both ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice,’” he said. “Any claim of ‘choice’ is empty if the law conceals the facts needed to make that choice.”

Limiting Access to Care?

Burke Balch, director of the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics at the National Right to Life Committee, said that in order to meet the law’s objectives to cut down health-care spending, most of the exchange plans have narrowed the panels of doctors and hospitals available to patients.

“Many of them are omitting major medical centers that have the availability of advanced care and cutting-edge medicine,” Balch said. “What we’re already beginning to see is that people’s opportunity to get lifesaving medical treatment is being diminished.”

People who have ordinary medical needs, such as breaking a leg or needing a flu shot, will continue to have their needs met.

But Balch said that the health-care law’s tradeoff — which has moral as well as monetary implications — is “that they’re limiting the ability of people to get adequate and advanced care when they are threatened with things like cancer or heart disease.”

This very situation is facing Edie Littlefield Sundby, a stage-4 gallbladder cancer patient, whose existing individual policy is canceled because it does not meet the requirements of the ACA. Sundby, in an article she penned for TheWall Street Journal, shared that none of the plans offered on California’s health exchange allow her to keep her doctors: She must choose between either her primary oncologist at Stanford University, who has kept her alive, or the University of California-San Diego, which has the primary care and emergency doctors who have supported her.

“Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician,” Sundby said.

Problems for Insurers and Employers

Balch pointed out that the ACA’s mechanisms for controlling costs would put pressure on insurers participating in the exchanges to limit their expenses on medical care — or else they could lose their ability to participate in the exchange.

“The result is we are going to give insurers a very strong incentive to not even give the option of plans that cost more and are less tightly managed,” he said.

The law also places a 40% excess-benefits tax on premiums starting in 2018 on employer-provided health plans that the federal government deems are “excessive.” Employers sponsoring plans for their employees will have to pay a 40% tax on every dollar spent on benefits that exceed more than $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage.

“The problem is that this cut-off amount, which was set in 2010 to allow most plans, is not allowed to rise with the rate of medical inflation,” Balch said. “It is only allowed to rise with the rate of average inflation.”

With these thresholds bound to changes in the Consumer Price Index, Balch said that more and more people will end up feeling the squeeze — and start to lose benefits as employer-sponsored plans make changes to avoid this category.

“Let’s say that medical inflation is rising like a car speeding at 60 mph, and average inflation is only speeding at 45 mph,” he said. “Well, if you’re only able to go 45 mph, you’re not going to keep up with that car at 60 mph.”

Balch said the eventual result will impact medical innovations. Because newer drugs are higher-priced due to the costs of research and development, companies will have a harder time finding markets that will pay for the drugs and may choose not to cover them at all.

“It will eventually start cutting into the treatments that we have on the high-cost end.”

Christian Alternatives

The moral challenges of abortion coverage, birth-control mandates and medical rationing posed by the ACA have prompted many to look at alternatives to the insurance system. The ACA carved out an exception that allowed medical cost-sharing cooperatives to fulfill the law’s insurance requirements.

Three major Christian medical-sharing ministries are Samaritan Ministries, Christian Medi-Share and Christian Healthcare Ministries, and each has its own way of helping families meet their health-care needs, sharing in their burdens and praying for one another.

At Samaritan Ministries, the largest Christian health-care sharing ministry, members share the burden of costs for needs over $300. Each member commits to sending a set “share” amount each month based on household size. These “share” amounts are matched through Samaritan’s database to a household in need and then are sent directly to that household to pay medical bills.

Christian Medi-Share has a variety of sharing options with monthly fees that vary based on what it calls the Annual Household Portion (AHP), the dollar amount that a family will be responsible for, before it can publish its medical bills for sharing. So a household with an AHP level of $1,250 would pay its annual medical bills up to $1,250. After that, all other household medical bills up to $1 million for the entire year are then shared among its membership.

Christian Healthcare Ministries has three sharing plans: gold, silver and bronze. The gold plan has a higher monthly participation fee, but the amount of personal responsibility for bills is lower, and the number of eligible bills for sharing (including maternity) is greater. Bronze has the lowest monthly cost, but a person in that plan only submits bills for inpatient and outpatient hospital treatments and surgery.

James Lansberry, executive director of Samaritan Ministries, said the ACA has made sharing ministries like Samaritan more widely known, and the company has seen a lot of growth from people looking for an alternative to health insurance that fits their practice of faith.

“We do not share in abortion; we do not share in other things we find morally objectionable,” said Lansberry. “We’re trying to balance two things: one, that each member should bear his own load — and that we should also bear one another's burdens, and so follow Christ.”

Lansberry said Samaritan’s members make their own decisions with their chosen medical professionals in how they treat all sorts of medical conditions, including life-threatening conditions like cancer. The inspiration for these health-care sharing ministries comes from the example of the early Christians.

“Our job as Christians is to bear one another’s burdens. It’s not to make your health-care decisions for you or predict what will happen,” he said. “It is just: Here are the burdens that have come up in the last 60 days, and here is what we are going to share in these burdens; and we will take care of it as a big family.”

Comments

Good News! Christian Healthcare Ministries has been in operation for 33 years already! They have many thousands of members already! They are very affordable, and are a non profit charity. CHM is not an insurance company. They are a great alternative to ACA. Best wishes.

Posted by Lillian Porter on Saturday, Feb 1, 2014 1:29 PM (EST):

Thanks Dot for confirming what I suspected. This info should be more widely disseminated. I’m going to copy and paste to pass on to folks on my email list.
Katherine that is good news but will CHM need more young,healthy members who will not deplete resources? Are membership fees adjusted according to age and health. Thanks for your answer.

Posted by katherine_w on Saturday, Feb 1, 2014 12:48 AM (EST):

After all the debate about Obamacare, I recently joined Christian Healthcare Ministries. This healthcare sharing co-op is truly affordable, and it is EXEMPT from the ACA, or Obamacare! I recommend it as a viable alternative to the deeply flawed healthcare law.

“The study examined 418 Amish women who delivered 927 babies at a birthing center in Southern Wisconsin, a facility that lacked an operating room.
Despite the low C-section rate among the Amish women, there were few complications: the rate of newborn deaths was 5.4 deaths per 1,000 deliveries, similar to the general U.S. population’s rate of 4.5 deaths per 1,000 deliveries, the researchers said. No mothers in the study died.

One of the biggest contributors to the reduced C-section rate was an increase in the percentage of women who gave birth vaginally after previously having a C-section. In the Amish population, the rate was 95 percent, compared with 8 percent in the U.S. as a whole.

Historically, doctors have had concerns that a vaginal birth after a C-section, a so-called VBAC, would increase the risk of a rupture of the uterus. But in the study, no women experienced this complication.

Over a 17-year period, just 4 percent of babies were born by Cesarean section at the birthing center. In the general U.S. population, by contrast, nearly a third of babies are born by C-section.”

Posted by Lillian Porter on Friday, Nov 8, 2013 2:55 PM (EST):

We should go back to the old ways, when a woman’s aunts, neighbors or sisters helped with deliveries. In the UK , even in the late 60’s, most women birthed their babies at home with the help of a nurse-midwife. Prior to the establishment of the NHS, neighborhood lay midwifes assisted Mom’s. Today, we know so much more about the mechanics of labor and delivery, that home-delivery is safer than ever.

In the late 70’s, we knew already, that high tech births would lead to more episiotomies and C-sections, especially when birthing in a University hospital, between the hours of 8am to 5pm on weekdays. Its incredible to me, that so many American women opt for epidural. They can’t even dangle their legs, they have to have urinary catheters, they’re unable to change the shape of their pelvis in order to facilitate birth. Fancy birthing rooms, with all the associated instrumentation, are the reason that the normal process of birth now costs $20,000.

Perhaps we should consider forming intentional Christian communities, so that like the Amish, we could live with less government intrusion. I wonder if most Amish births occur at home? We should do this as well for the safety of our sick, disabled and elderly brothers and sisters, so that we can take care of them as families have always done, instead of delivering them up to the wiles of government-run health care.

Posted by Howard Russell on Friday, Nov 8, 2013 2:26 PM (EST):

I am President of Christian Healthcare Ministries. We have many, many Catholic members. We have been in existence for 32.5 years. We are the first such organization. We have an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau as an Accredited Charity. We ask all members to sign the application stating that they are Christians, living by biblical principles, abstaining from use of tobacco and attend worship regularly. We were featured in a “Our Weekly Visitor” article a few years ago. We are ready, willing and eager to have more Catholics as members. Our purpose if to serve the Kingdom of God.

Posted by Karyn on Friday, Nov 8, 2013 11:21 AM (EST):

@Sheila. I don’t know about Samaritan Ministries but Medishare would not cover the pregnancy/labor costs, as far as I understand. I don’t know how it works for minors on plans but for adults, you sign an agreement that you will live a Christian life, including upholding your marriage vows. Remember, this is a cost sharing program based on Acts - if you’re not living as a Christian, then it wouldn’t really be fair to expect fellow Christians to pay for those costs. In that case, the daughter would probably have to seek help from a Christian woman’s center. But then again, I don’t know how it works for minors on the plan.

Posted by Sheila on Friday, Nov 8, 2013 7:41 AM (EST):

Wait, so if you’re on Samaritan Ministries, and your teenage daughter gets pregnant, they won’t cover that? That doesn’t sound very Christian.

Think about it. An uncomplicated birth, depending on where you are, is ten to twenty thousand dollars. (Mine was fourteen thousand; I couldn’t believe that bill!) An abortion is a couple hundred. No one wants to do that kind of math, but Samaritan certainly isn’t helping people make the right choice.

Posted by mary on Thursday, Nov 7, 2013 3:15 PM (EST):

these are not health care issue but only selfish issues, the churches are supposed to be protected against the state, that is what the constitution was for. Now they government and the President are now interfering with the religious and dictating what is religious enough and not. Really!

Posted by EileenG on Thursday, Nov 7, 2013 10:18 AM (EST):

Awesome comments to this article… Thank God for the NCR and its role in building an intelligent community of the faithful, who can do what is being done here - serving as a sounding board to educate Catholics on current events.
.
Andy, you are right that many of us (unknowingly) funded abortion through our private health insurance, but now we know about it, so can do something about it.
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I weep to think of how Mitt Romney could have shed light on this challenge to our nation if he had been elected President. He would have shut off the teleprompter, rolled up his sleeves, and met quietly and diligently with the best people in the land to craft sensible approaches to the problem of providing basic health care to all our citizens. Sadly, we have the worst possible demagogue now in the White House, who divides us and is forcing the worst sort of health care system upon us - a bureaucrat-designed Rube Goldberg contraption that will diminish our common humanity for decades to come, if it ever gets off the ground.

Posted by Deacon Nick Nichols on Thursday, Nov 7, 2013 9:14 AM (EST):

Deidre, Karyn - confirmed the law is limited to those in business as of Dec 31, 1999, so only the 3 existing co-ops mentioned in this article are available. Too late for us Catholics; would have been a great opportunity. Nevertheless, these 3 are still excellent options to consider. And by the way, as of Oct 1, 25 states, including KY, have specific laws permitting such co-ops. It is true that Medishare was stopped briefly by a federal judge in Ky, but the KY legislature passed specific legislation in June 2012 to exclude such co-ops from insurance regs. If I had been aware of this option 30 years ago, it would have been a ‘no brainer’ to go that route vice insurance. Please spread the word to your friends, Catholic or not. And may The Lord bless you in all your efforts!

Posted by Karyn on Thursday, Nov 7, 2013 7:34 AM (EST):

@Mom and More - the declaration I had to sign was not sola scriptura or sola fide - you can see the declaration on Medishare’s site. I don’t know about the other programs.

@Tom - I see your point that others should be able to select a plan that doesn’t pay for abortion. However, the whole idea behind the co-ops is the idea of Christians sharing their costs, as seen in Acts. Medishare also won’t pay for costs that come from unChristian living - such as drunk driving, pregnancy out of wedlock, etc. Members are also encouraged to pray for the members to whom their portion is being sent. None of this framework would correspond well to the beliefs of Buddhists and atheists. If there wasn’t a “freeze” on the co-ops, the Buddhists and atheists could form their own based on their system of belief.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 10:17 PM (EST):

RE: the “declaration of faith” issue, at least one sect of Buddhism also opposes abortion—a Theravada monk who so much as gives directions to a clinic is, traditionally, defrocked automatically, exactly as if they’d performed an execution. There are atheists (Nat Hentoff, for one) who oppose abortion. It’s stupid to limit conscience protections to Christians.

Posted by enness on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 7:16 PM (EST):

Andy,
Matt. 20: 1-16
Better late than never.

Posted by Lillian Porter on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 5:48 PM (EST):

Andy,
It never dawned on me during my working life to check my employee health care plan to see if abortion and contraception were covered. If you don’t know there’s a question, you don’t think about asking. I never heard any prompts from the pulpit.
The Church had a wisdom about these issues, which science has had to catch up with. However, most people within and without the Church, do not understand the spiritual teachings, particularly with regard to contraception. So much is known now, regarding abortion and contraceptive related pathologies, that the Church should consider it an act of mercy to teach about them:
Certain types of birth control like Depo-Provera, have caused a rapid rise in the number of new HIV and HPV cases among women. Women report bleeding, hair loss and emotional changes (aggression is the third most reported symptom); Lower male testosterone levels worldwide may be attributable to birth control (male testosterone rises in the presence of OVULATING women - a rare breed these days); researchers claim that female pheromone disruption caused by these drugs, leads women to prefer genetically SIMILAR men. Evolution does not like that..
Estrogen dominant contraceptives, cause cardiovascular disease, including strokes and pulmonary emboli. As an RN, I was witness to this in the UK and the US. There are numerous lawsuits, in the U.S. and Canada, against the makers of Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella; the WHO, while still promoting “reproductive health”, lists estrogen, with nicotine and asbestos, as a Class I carcinogen and the cause of most liver, cervical and breast cancers; male fish all over the world are becoming feminized, even producing immature eggs and again, estrogen is implicated. (Women have been excreting its by-products for five decades). Some women, who stayed on birth-control for years, after first getting it for acne or “cramps’, find themselves unable to conceive - in effect, they have been chemically castrated.
Abortion causes a host of medical and psych problems. There are numerous international studies confirming the relationship of abortion and the most virulent triple-negative breast cancer. I learned, in nursing school forty-five years ago, that full-term pregnancy and lactation were the most effective means to prevent breast cancer. It has been known, for hundreds of years, that women who did not have babies were prone to breast cancer.
In other countries, including a European Union study, there is confirmatory research concerning the link between abortion and severe mental health issues. The Finnish STAKES research, which involves hundreds of women over several years, revealed a suicide and accident rate among women in their first post-abortion year, which was four times that of the general population. The suicides, accidents and rare homicides, usually occurred on the anniversary of the abortion or the due date of the child. Finland is a socialist country where abortion is prevalent. They have universal health care which made record reviews reliable.
Why do most people not know these things? You should download the 1969 ‘Jaffe Memo’, along with Henry Kissinger’s once top-secret ‘National Security Study Memorandum’. The most accessible information usually comes from the publications of religious people, but they are usually written off as “right-wing extremist propaganda”. A good site otherwise, is ClinicQuotes. com (a blog of atheist Sarah Terzo) where there are a wealth of scientific and historical leads. The Elliot Institute, though it has religious founders, provides a great deal of objective scientific information. AbortionBreastCancer.com, website of Dr. Angela LanFranchi an Ob/Gyn doc, has a lot of links to research.
Vicki Thorne, has some lectures on You Tube, providing some startling information. (‘What They Never Told You in Sex-Ed’) Dr. Janet Smith, an expert on contraception, will confirm and amplify Ms. Thorne’s teaching).
I hope you follow some of these leads Andy. A brain is a terrible thing to waste on mainstream media.

Posted by Carol Morel on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 5:39 PM (EST):

Solidarity HealthShare is the proposed Catholic alternative to the health shares mentioned in the article, but it has not yet been launched.

Posted by Karyn on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 4:02 PM (EST):

There was a Catholic medical co-op in the works (ST Joseph’s Vanguard, maybe?). The blogger at Charles Carroll Society said that medical co-ops were not allowed to be formed after a certain date (some time in the 1990s?) - so the present co-ops are the only allowed ones. And even then, they’re not allowed in all states (Medishare is not allowed in Kentucky, for instance).

@Andy - I wondered about that myself when I started looking at other plans once Obamacare came on the scene. Even if abortion was covered before, if I understand correctly, it’s going to be covered at a much greater rate in 2014. I think if new plans make abortion and contraception that much more easy to come by, then the numbers will increase. Also, even if I was already implicit in helping to pay for abortions, does that mean I should continue to be just because I didn’t previously look into the issue before?

Posted by Mom and more on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 3:35 PM (EST):

I would like to know more about the required “declaration of faith.” I recall reading that the declaration was for belief in a Protestant, sola scriptura faith; one that a Catholic could not, in good conscience, sign. Does anyone know?
color58

Posted by Anon on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 2:32 PM (EST):

You can’t say that you were not warned about this and the lies Obama was telling about Obamcare and what it would and would not do.

Posted by Michael on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 1:49 PM (EST):

Giving a person the choice to purchase insurance that covers elective abortion, and providing this same person with federal subsidies to purchase said insurance policy, is this administration’s successful attempt to use federal money to guarantee a person access to what they claim to be a fundamental human right—the right to kill an innocent unborn child.

Posted by Biba on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 1:29 PM (EST):

I agree with Andy’s comments; more over just because you get the ObamaCare Health Insurance does not mean you will go out and get an abortion or whatnot. Whether you get the HealthCare or not you have to live by your conscience and faith.

Karyn, Bob, DJ—This is the opportunity, but not for insurance (risk sharing), but co-ops (cost sharing). Significantly cheaper than any insurance options, and need not support morally offensive procedures/services. The AFCA specifically allows such co-ops to fulfill one’s legal obligations under the law. We could easily move to such co-ops on a state and/or diocesan and/or community of interest (such as Knights of Columbus) basis. Please take the opportunity to your bishops.

Posted by Deirdre Mundy on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 12:56 PM (EST):

The USCCB CAN’T form a plan like that now—The Christian Medical Plans have a loophole (you don’t pay the Obamacare tax if you join them), but to be eligible for the loophole, your plan has to have been in business for at least 20 years. So it’s too late to start a ‘Catholic’ plan. OTOH, the statement of faith for these plans is… the Nicene Creed. And you have to promise to attend church weekly if your health allows it, and to pray for the sick. Which, as Catholics, we’re ALREADY obligated to do…..

We’re signing up for one of these soon—- We’re looking at the 10K deductible, just because we don’t mind paying OOP for predictable stuff…

Posted by DJ Hesselius on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 12:38 PM (EST):

Instead of promoting “universal health insurance” the USCCB should be involving in forming a plan such as Samaritan Ministries, etc. In addition to spelling out that abortion is excluded, they could say that contraceptives (abortive such as The Pill, and non-abortive such as the Diaphragm) are not covered. They could encourage enrollment of all the religious, the parish employees, school teachers, etc. The market would have a HUGE potential audience. In addition, perhaps there would be greater control over so-called Catholic Hospitals—they would have to ensure they do not perform abortions, sterilizations, sex change operations, etc, if they wanted to be part of the “network.”

Posted by Andy on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 12:16 PM (EST):

Oh, pullleeeez. Catholics who have been obtaining their health insurance through employers have been contributing to insurance plans that include contraceptives and abortion for 40+ years now. No one, and I mean NO one cared before. Everyone knew—including the Bishops, at least implicitly by their silence on the matter—that such remote participation in an evil was not formal or material cooperation in that evil.

Posted by Bob on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 12:08 PM (EST):

I have often wondered why the U.S. Catholic Church, with about 20% of the population membership, can’t be essentially self insured. Not just for it’s institutions, but for the faithful.

Posted by Karyn on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 11:53 AM (EST):

I just joined Medishare because of Obamacare. There’s the added benefit that my monthly costs will be nearly half of what they would have been if I had stayed on BCBS past January. Members have to make a declaration of faith and costs related to unchristian behavior (abortion, sex changes, pregnancy out of wedlock, STDs) are not eligible for sharing. Smokers are not allowed and you have to pay extra if you’re obese (but you pay less if you’re in good shape). I haven’t had to make a claim so can’t speak to that, but I at least feel better joining this organization - and I love that they end phone calls with prayer or a “God Bless”.

Peter—Thanks for raising the health care co-op issue. Been trying to get my bishops educated/interested, but so far no joy. (If you would like a copy of the proposed article I wrote Oct 16th on this topic, e-mail me at the above address and I’ll send; it does have additional info you may find of help.) I am are our bishops are reluctant to dive into this without it coming through USCCB, but they (and their staffs) are totally uninformed of co-op (cost-sharing) models vice insurance (risk0sharing) models. Given the 100 plus years of government vice private insurance debate—with no cop-ops in the picture—this is understandable. But the co-op option, in addition to precluding morally offensive subsidies, is significantly cheaper than risk-sharing (insurance) models on a number of counts because it forces spending discipline on its members. If you wish to discuss my cell is: 270-748-1604

Posted by MLsouth on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 8:47 AM (EST):

I am guessing they will see a great increase in their membership. They should share this with Hannity or Limbaugh so others can be aware of them.

Posted by robert waligora on Wednesday, Nov 6, 2013 8:03 AM (EST):

half of these same families voted for the evil one, not once but twice, reap what you sow

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